Preserving the past for the future
Antik Capital raises and provides working capital at scale to locate, organize, and preserve irreplaceable 20th century historic print photography media collections from all over the world and place them in the care of institutional organizations designed to benefit the public and future generations, including museums and university library archives.
Near the turn of the century, the era of print media came to an end. Many of the companies that captured these photos vanished without the resources or any plan to preserve what they created for future generations. Some photos went into individual photographers’ collections, some landed in forgotten basements, and many were simply destroyed. Without someone to find and rescue these irreplaceable assets, they will soon be completely lost to time.
WELCOME TO ANTIK CAPITAL
Our Focus
Preservation at work
The capital raised through our funds is deployed in partnership with a second-generation family business that has decades of experience in this space. Historic Images finds and preserves historic media assets, and they’ve built a reputation for their expertise in this space. The family has developed a global network that helps identify collections worthy of preservation. Once a collection is identified, it takes working capital and around two years to pack, ship, sort, scan, digitize, organize, and catalogue these assets into a searchable collection. After that extensive process, the photos are finally ready to be placed in the hands of preservation institutions before they are lost.
These assets are primary historical documents created by long-standing media institutions, notable photographers, and others during an era that has now passed. They document the people, events, and visual records of the 20th century. These irreplaceable treasures are assets of local, national, and global significance — carrying market value, research value, and public value.
A different kind of investment platform
The institutions designed to preserve historic collections like these generally do not have the funds or resources needed to find, acquire, and catalogue these assets outright. However, U.S. tax policy and laws incentivize efforts such as ours by providing a charitable deduction for donating this type of asset to qualified donees. Antik Capital enables the preservation of these historically significant collections at scale before they are lost. This is made possible by allowing individuals like you to provide the working capital required to enable this preservation effort for the public benefit and future generations through their investment. In exchange, investors may benefit via a charitable deduction when the assets are either donated to qualifying institutions or from sales proceeds if an offer is received to purchase a collection.
Andrew B. “Drew” Adams, MBA
Co-Founder & Principal
Stephen D. Miles, CFP®, ChFC®
Co-Founder & Principal
